too late to save
by Bossy Mossy
Summary: I saw her go to take the step that would cause everything to change. Until Molly had come along, no one had noticed the island withering away until it was almost too late to save. I was not going to be too late to save her. WizardxMolly, ToT/AP oneshot.


I have never played Tree of Tranquility or Animal Parade. I don't even own a Wii. After reading a MollyxWizard fic on here ("Every Heart, go look it up!), I became obsessed with Wizard. He seems like such an interesting character, and I wanted to try my hand at him.

I hope you like it. C&C, R&R, whatever.

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><p>She didn't know how her crops could suddenly reappear, plump and ready to be harvested, after a demobilizing thunderstorm that had destroyed her vegetable garden and rattled her house.<p>

She didn't understand how a vicious, wild dog, snarling and frightening her chickens, could have suddenly had a change of heart and turned tail and ran off, as if something had frightened it, leaving her chickens simply ruffled and unharmed.

If she had known better, she would have thought it odd, scary, even, but Molly wasn't that kind of person. She chalked it up to magic, something that made me smirk in a bittersweet way. If only she knew.

I didn't understand why my attention was drawn to the rancher; I couldn't fathom why someone as uninteresting as her, why a human being, had become so important to me. I had seen many generations in this town, I had seen many people live and die, and none of them attracted the attention as she attracted. She was magical, for a better lack of the term, even if she didn't posses the same qualities being a true magical being had, the qualities I possessed. I could change events; I could change how families would play out and could see the different possible events every time I closed my eyes to dream. Some of them were good; others, not as well. And even knowing the consequences of changing the future... I had done so minutely for the rancher.

I had foreseen the storm, I had foreseen how devastated and distraught she was when her main source of income was destroyed. I had seen the gruesome outcome of the attack from the wild dog. All it took was a few spells, a few concoctions, and her crops were better than they had been, the dog no longer a threat. I had considered it a favor; after all, she was restoring the island to how it had been in years' past.

If only I knew better, I would have called it a childish crush... affection, even. If only I knew better.

Molly didn't understand how someone could have known she had gone to the docks that winter night to watch the first spring sunrise; she didn't understand how someone else could have seen her or even noticed her, enveloped in the dark. She hadn't noticed the ice on the wooden dock, caused by sloshing waves and rising tides, but I had.

I had seen the ice, I had seen her wander onto the snow-covered beach. I had seen the disaster minutes before it occurred, the thought forcing my eyes open in the middle of slumber and causing me to sit up immediately. I didn't take a chance to clear my eyes or grab my shoes, falling out of bed after getting caught in the blankets and hurrying to get up. Before I could comprehend I was changing the future, more so than re-growing the crops or not allowing a dog to devour one of her chickens, I was out the door, racing towards the docks.

Unlike the over-head view of the disaster I had seen in my dreams, unbiased, uncaring, simply seeing, soundless and factual, this was different. The wind whistled in my ears; my skin, damp with sweat from the off-putting dream, was now cold, and I could feel the snow crunch beneath my bare feet. I could hear my breath, staggered in the frigid winds, and see the wisps my warm breath caused in the chilling air.

I saw her go onto the docks, I saw her reach and pull her jacket closer around her. I saw her go to take the step that would cause everything to change.

No one had bothered to try and fix the island. No one believed in the Harvest Goddess or her tree. Until Molly had come along, no one had noticed the tree withering away until it was almost too late save.

I was _not_ going to be too late to save her.

In my dream, she had slipped, she had fallen, hitting her head on the ice-covered dock. No one could hear her scream in the howling wind, and no one would find her until the next afternoon, hypothermic. She would die, cold and alone.

She couldn't. She wouldn't.

"Molly!"

Noise finally erupted from my throat. It was foreign; it had been centuries since I had heard myself so anguished, heard my voice so loud. She flinched at the noise, turning her head and looking towards the noise in surprise, and I watched as her foot took that vital step. She slipped, her feet coming out from underneath her, a scream coming from her mouth.

As her foot slipped, my own touched the dock, and before I could comprehend my actions I reached out and snagged a hold of the back of her shirt, pulling her off of the dock and onto the snow-covered beach with strength I was unsure I had before. The momentum of pulling her and the fact that my chilled hand hadn't let go of my shirt caused me to tumble to the ground next to her, shivering from the cold and my fingers shaking from adrenalin.

There was no horrifying noise of her hitting the ice; she did not flail her arms. Her uneven breath and my own were the only noises I heard, despite the howling wind; her face was the only thing I could see, pink with cold and eyes wide, unfathoming, despite the house lights and the doors that were opening Harmonica Town. This outcome was different than in my dreams. Others were coming to see what had happened.

"How... how did you know?" she finally spoke, her watery gaze on my own. I saw tears create tracks down her cheeks and onto the snow, and when she began to blur I realized I was crying too, a delirious smile beginning to form on my face. "Why did you save me?"

"You're saving Castanet," I told her, my voice shaky, rasping, my hand finally unlatching from her shirt. "The least I could do was offer you a favor."

The girl turned onto her side and curled up against my bare chest, her own hands balling into fists, and a few moments later I heard her begin to sob, hot breath and warm tears mingling on my collar bone.

If only I had known better, I would have called it love.

If only I knew better.


End file.
